Your turn: Galesburg is being run by a ship of fools
When you sit down and think about all of the challenges we are faced with in Galesburg, it is easy to get depressed and lose all hope for a just and equal community. Our hope was renewed when we elected a progressive mayor and we had four progressive aldermen. But like all things, it didn’t last.
At the last election, we replaced two aldermen with extreme right-wing Republicans, giving them a four-person majority. We now have, what you might commonly call, a mess.
To paint the picture a bit more clearly, we now have a city council, a county board and a school board, dominated by right-wing Republicans. This includes the sheriff’s department, and it looked like the city police. All getting their marching orders from state-wide right-wing organizations.
Their methods are to create fear and confusion to sidetrack us while they slip in their own agenda of hatred and racism. This literally happened at a recent city council meeting. The mayor had not seen the agenda that was being used by some of the aldermen. This is an example of the foolishness they are promoting. More distraction and confusion.
Racism has been a key to this superior position, using an array of anti-color practices, policies, and ever perpetuating inequalities that work to maintain white privilege and power. We have made some progress, to be sure, put we still have a long way to go to guarantee every American the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Galesburg is going backward. We have re-entered The Dark Ages.
The rise of Christian infused nationalism is a strange creature indeed, although not necessarily anything new. We have prescribed for a long time that Christ was white and would have preferred the rich over the poor, and the nation-state over the people. There have always been those who believe country is more important than those who inhabit it. Maybe because I’m left-handed, I don’t really understand that. We were never 100 percent American. In fact, very few of us ever were.
We are a nation of immigrants, built out of a melting pot of diverse backgrounds and cultures. That is our uniqueness and should be one of our greatest strengths. Send a sample of your saliva to Ancestry and you’ll soon find out that you are not pure anything.
The Statue of Liberty, looking worn and tired, continues to call people to our shores. We sell ourselves as “the land of opportunity,” but do everything in our power to undermine that promise. Antiquated immigration laws, the attitude that white is best, and our mass amnesia of where we all come from, combine to dampen the hope that this country can help the homeless and disenfranchised people of the world.
We have no time to wallow in despair. As tiring and potentially as depressing as the battle is, each night before you fall asleep, you need to tell yourself that good always prevails. Hatred always loses.
That righteousness finds itself in our suffering and always tilts toward the common good. That we are not just engaged in a battle for ourselves, but for the next seven generations. We can sink this ship of fools, but not by standing on the side lines.
Hope, along with prayer, requires action. Change is painful, and will never come about without sweat, and tears. The battle for Galesburg will not be for the faint of heart. But we will overpower right-wing Republicanism.
Good always defeats evil. Love always conquers hate and equality and justice always prevails over bigotry and racism. It always has, and it always will.
Bruce Weik, was a longtime columnist for The Zephyr, and is co-creator of Many Paths Galesburg since 2019.
This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Your turn: Galesburg is being run by a ship of fools
